Tax Investigators Comb Junk Yards

CLAYTON, MO (KTVI)– Police and State investigators raided junkyards today, looking for possible stolen cars and missing revenue. St. Louis County Police went in with Wellston P.D. and investigators from the Missouri Department of Revenue. tax agents took the lead on this case.

The agents then hit Wellston Scrap`s second location on Martin Luther King. They walked with the owners who demanded search warrants and called in their attorney Pat Conroy.

Chris Hayes asked Conroy, ‘What`s going on in here?’Attorney Conroy answered, ‘The Department of Revenue is looking for some documentation on some car parts that they say need to be filed as in the course of doing business. There`s no criminal allegations of any kind.’

No officer would comment on the record. This is an active case. Conroy said the investigators simply warned Wellston Scrap to improve the way workers track car parts.

Conroy said, ‘They either need to be documented where they were gotten from or, if it`s a case, sometimes people will come in and drop car parts off and the best way to document that would be put the date and the time and list the fact it was unknown what car the parts were from.’

State investigators confirmed Wellston Scrap does not have a license and cannot take entire cars. Several elected officials in Wellston wonder why the business remains open. I talked to three alderman who said Wellston banned junk yards from any main road in the City including MLK, but Wellston Scrap opened since then, despite that ban. The alderman recommended talking to the Mayor about why that is.

Mayor Linda Whitfied was unavailable at home, City Hall or by phone.

Police also made a second arrest during the investigation, also unrelated to the raids. They found a customer wanted on a warrant. We`ll follow up on the results of State`s investigation.